Today In Gay: Guys Going Shirtless In NYC (!), Fisting In Detroit, More

A teacher at a Catholic high school in Los Angeles County got axed after 17 years when administrators learned he married his boyfriend earlier this month. Ken Bencomo’s honeymoon with husband Christopher Persky was cut short when he got a pink slip. He was informed that “the school’s position was that it violated church teachings,” said attorney Patrick McGarrigle, who also stated that Bencomo’s sexual orientation was known to the school. “The suggestion that Ken’s orientation is a surprise or that his lifestyle somehow violated doctrine is at odds with the school’s knowledge and what seemed to be acceptance of him until most recently,” he said.

In reality, the school—like the Catholic Church itself—didn’t care that Bencomo, an English teacher and yearbook advisor, was gay until he went ahead and took a public affirmative stance by getting married. (He also appeared in a newspaper article about his nuptials, one of the first in the state since the SCOTUS ruling against Prop 8.)

Detroit artist Jerry Vile had some ’splainin’ to do about his latest stunt: Placing a giant tub of Crisco in front of a beloved larger-than-life sculpture of boxer Joe Louis’ fist. (He called the work a “magical Vessel of Hope” to help “ease the pain of Detroit’s bankruptcy.”) The local Fox affiliate, Fox 2 Detroit, was stymied, asking on Facebook “Can anyone explain what this means???” Um, we got it right away.

Always at the forefront of breaking trends, the New York Times declares men going shirtless because of the heat is a thing.

NBC is still sorting out how it will address Russia’s human-rights issues when it begins airing the Sochi Winter Games in 2014. But Truth Wins Out has started a Change.org petition to encourgae the network to make Rachel Maddow a human-rights correspondent for the Games. Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out explains: People around the world want to watch and support the Olympics, but they want to do so with a clear conscience. Make a difference, NBC, by adding Rachel Maddow to the Olympic coverage as a special Human Rights Correspondent.” TWO says Maddow is the ideal candidate because she “has the expertise and the instincts to tell this full story to a viewing audience who are appalled by the treatment of their Russian brothers and sisters.”

Rawhide, the veteran leather bar that closed last year after 34 years, is going to become a pizza chain. ” Project Pie is known as “the Chipotle of fast-casual pizza.” Fast casual? What the hell is that?

What if they threw an ex-gay demonstration and nobody showed up? Right Wing Watch reports that though Sandy Rios of American Family Radio and “ex-gay lobbying day” organizer Christopher Doyle claimed “thousands of ex-gays are descending” on Washington yesterday to stake a claim for TK, less than 10 showed up. Organizers of the DC non-event blamed “heterophobic activists [who] will stop at nothing to attack ex-gays.” Yeah, except that most of us didn’t know this was even happening.